Word: repentant
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Without some form of reparations, apologizing for a historical wrong is an empty gesture. For one thing, both the slaves and the slave owners are long since dead, and you can't repent for the sins of others. And even if you could, our legal system recognizes that repentance without compensation serves only to make the apologizer feel good while doing nothing for the victim. It's why the U.S. government not only apologized but paid $20,000 apiece to Japanese Americans who were sent to concentration camps during World War II. And why Germany not only apologized...
...that the church's earlier policy against gays has been replaced by one with constitutional force, Anderson predicts some gays and lesbians will leave the church, since the amendment states that you should not hold office if "refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin." He also says the church will find itself in a hypocritical bind if it chooses to enforce "chastity" and not the 17th century bans on divorce and working on the Sabbath. Anderson, however, is not abandoning his church: "I'm in this for the long haul," even if takes "another...
Jesus was hardly tentative about proclaiming the world to come. His first words as a preacher were, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." However, most of his famous metaphors for heaven (as the treasure hidden in a field or the pearl of great price) address humankind's ideal relationship to God's kingdom more than a specific paradise. Regarding heaven's actual "mysteries," he tells the Apostles that it is not given to most people to know them. An exception to this rule is his chilling parable of Lazarus and Dives: The rich master, consigned to hell...
...means. In fact, the dancers and singers were mostly very poor young men and women of the lower classes enticed by money. But there was an ethical draw-back: the Church refused to marry or bury actors and dancers. Thus the frequency of early ballerinas that entered nunneries to repent in their later years. In America, ballet was considered immoral up to the 20th century. Only at that point did ballet ascend the ranks into "high culture...
This belief in restraint has roots in my faith. A few weeks ago, I heard two very important stories during the service. In the first, Jonah, a reluctant prophet recently released from a whale's belly preaches death and destruction to the city of Ninevah unless they repent. The city repents, is forgiven and is not destroyed. Jonah is furious at being made to look like a liar. God reminds the prophet that in anger, he has forgotten that life is not his to give and take--and there are a great many lives in Ninevah...